BACOLOD CITY – Five New People’s Army (NPA) fighters were killed in a series of clashes with government forces in Barangay Quintin Remo, Moises Padilla, Negros Occidental on Saturday, May 20.
The Army has yet to identify the slain NPA rebels.
According to the Army, the first clash with 14 communist fighters occurred at around 5:05 a.m. in Sitio Napiluan while troops were conducting combat operations in response to information regarding the planned atrocities of the NPA in the towns of Moises Padilla and La Castellana.
Forty minutes later, the Army 62nd Infantry Battalion (IB) engaged six NPA rebels in another firefight in Sitio Oway-Oway, followed by another five-minute clash when the blocking team of the 62nd IB monitored the fleeing communists in the area.
Soldiers recovered from the encounter site some firearms, ammunition, an NPA flag, other war materiels, and personal belongings.
The military, along with personnel of the Moises Padilla Municipal Police Station and Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO), will retrieve the five cadavers and turn them over to the municipal police.